Inquiry into Dot Day and Colours

September 15th was International Dot Day, inspired by author Peter Reynolds.

Our class read his book "The Dot" to inspire us all to create something artistic. We no longer say "I can't."

Last week we used paint and Bingo Dabbers to learn the letters in our names.

This week we were introduced to a new art material: oil pastels. We are learning how to care for our art materials, and to make a plan before using these materials. In tribute to "Dot Day" we are leaning about colour combinations and looking at what certain colour combinations make us think about.

Learning to use oil pastels for art projects.

We will continue to create colourful dots throughout the next few weeks and display them in our school's front foyer for Curriculum Night for all to see.

Learning the letters in our names

I thoroughly enjoy watching the kiddos begin to recognize their names as they walk into the classroom, but this week we have created some provocations to allow the kiddos to practice putting all the letters in the correct order.

Using Upper and Lowercase stamps 

Using Bingo Dabbers to create "rainbow names"

They love using the different materials and especially enjoy creating "rainbow names", just like our shared reading poem this week: "Rainbow Hair". It is so rewarding to hear them make the connections to stories we have read.

Using coloured letter beads to lace our names into bracelets.

We are continuing to create more and more "Dot Day" artistic pieces for our school-wide culminating task to transform our foyer into a waterfall of Dots to be displayed for curriculum night. We have a special project on the go to add to the foyer on October 3rd for all parents and grandparents to see. 

I am please to see more parents joining our blogspot and following along with our classroom learning. This is a great opportunity to talk to your children about what they are learning in school. You can also follow our classroom twitter account @MMPSkinderclass

A very busy week back!

Welcome back to our Blog. I'm so excited to be starting a new year with all the kiddos. They are so excited and inquisitive - it's going to be a great year full of learning.

We had many centres for exploration this week. Lots of great learning and thinking happening. So glad the kiddos are already in the habit of making sure they post their thinking and learning on our DAILY WRITING Wall.

Drawing what I see on the table. I will hang it on my placemat. 

We have built castles, and tall towers.

We have experimented with water colour paintings and told our stories to an adult to be captured on paper.
Sorry no photos. :-(


Observed and asked questions about the bunny. Today she was even out for the majority of the day. Many of the kiddos were able to pat her gently while she even hopped over one of our kiddos who was lying on the floor watching her.

Created travel destinations for the trains.

Looked at beautiful sunflowers and created our own art interpretations.

And finally went on an adventure today and collected very cool things. We brought these back into the class to share at our tables, by talking about what we found, what we thought was cool, and what we liked best. The "piece de resistance" at our table groups we cooperated together to create some loose parts art. We are all so proud of the our imaginations.

What a great week. Inquiries are starting and we have more nature to come next week. Stay tuned.

Last week in BBFK

Wow! These past 4 weeks have gone by so fast. I am so inspired by the learning that takes place in such a short period of time.

Looking at all my kiddos now this week, we have learned to recognize all the letters in our names, many additional letters of the alphabet, and for some kiddos we have started to recognize some sight words. We are well on our way to reading, writing, and creating once the school year starts.

Another area where I have been totally inspired is in the art that my kiddos are producing. They love to work with paints and are beginning to use natural and still object for their art. I can foresee a lot of observational art and writing coming to fruition this coming school year. I can't wait to see where our wonders will lead us.

Please celebrate with me when you look at some of the pic-collages we have co-constructed in small groups to share with our community.



Provocation for some watercolour art

Drawing our plan



Beginning our watercolour background

Here are 2 wonderful examples of the process it to create such wonderful art masterpieces.









Another area of interest this last week has been building roads and castles. Many of the kiddos used several different manipulatives to build and then talk about their structures.

I make a bridge for car!

Here a couple of kiddos were making a picture of the tree they saw out the Wonder Window.

 

Lastly I would also like to include more of our water colour art the kiddos made after bringing in wild flowers from the Eco Garden near our playground.

Thanks for viewing and joining this blog to see how the kiddos are developing and growing as individuals in our community.

Beginning of Week 3 BBFK

Welcome to all the new parents joining our blog. This is a great place to see what your kiddos have been doing in the classroom. Please feel free to leave us a message, as we often look at the blog together during the week to reflect on our learning.

We have started the week putting together our own Brown Bear, Brown Bear big book so the kiddos can reread it often. At one of our centres they have the opportunity to retell the story using stick puppets.

Another centre we have set up for the kiddos to experiment with is hidden colour words and alphabet letters as a find and match activity. All the kiddos have loved running their hands through the confetti as it feels pretty cool.

Many other kiddos are enjoying the sand table where they can look for letters they are familiar with and tell me or a friend the name. We are still in the beginning stages of recognizing and naming letters. This is great reinforcement and something that can be done at home too in a bowl of salt or sugar.  Can your kiddo find the letters in their name and say the letters out loud?

Continuing on the colour inquiry this week, one of our kiddos made a "rainbow" meal for the house centre. Bringing in the theme from last week she called it our fruit salad bowl.

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What a gat start to this 3rd week. I can't wait to see what the rest of the week brings with these kiddos who have come so far already!

Week 2 in BBFK

We are well into our second week of BBFK and the kiddos are beginning to adjust to some of our routines. All the kiddos are able to find their name cards in order to complete the sign-in process and most are able to pick a book and continue sustained reading for about 5 minutes.

This week we have concentrated on the practice of printing our names using various methods. Rainbow name printing is one of the favourites.

During learning center time, the trains have been an on-going process. The tracks change daily, as do some of the groups building. We are learning to share the train cars with our friends, as well as build the track together.

Another small group of kiddos really enjoy watching and observing the bunny. Today we discussed what they think she likes to eat. The kiddos came up with a few good observations of lettuce, carrots, water, and PAPER! She really enjoys sitting in her bed bin and chewing on the paper in there.

Stay tuned for more learning next week, and we hope you enjoy this week's post.

BBFK has started!

Well today was our first half day in my new classroom, with all our BBFK kiddos. We have a new Sr. Counsellor for the summer: Ms. To. I am excited to work with her before she heads off to teacher's college in the fall.

Today was a fun day to watch the kiddos find activities to engage with. Several girls gravitated to the puppet theatre - we may be seeing some plays be created, while others immediately began building castles, trains, and bridges.

Find the characters today.

And then they added the audience chairs.

While not too many tears toady, tomorrow will be an even better day!